Conventional methods of tire manufacture comprise assembling a "green cover" from a plurality of unvulcanised rubber components, placing the green cover into a mould and applying heat and pressure so that the final shape, particularly the tread pattern, is imparted to the covers and the rubber cured, so that a complete tire is formed. The stages of moulding and curing the tire are expensive because a large, steam heated press working on a heating cycle of about 15 minutes, for a size of tire suitable for a car, is required. The press is conventionally designed to accommodate two tire moulds so two tires are produced simultaneously but the moulds themselves are expensive particularly because they each comprise a large number, e.g. up to 64, tread moulding segments mounted in a backing ring. Each individual segment is made from die-cast aluminium alloy and machined to a complex shape so is therefore expensive. The other parts of the mould for shaping the tire sidewalls, etc. are also expensive.
Not only are the moulds expensive but they are only capable of being used to form one size of tire. For example it is not possible to allow a range of tyres with different tread widths to be formed in the same mould.
It is an object of the present invention to attempt to overcome or alleviate these disadvantages.